


Lie

by LacePendragon



Category: RWBY
Genre: Agender Ozpin (RWBY), Angst, Discussion, During V5, Gen, Immortal Ozpin, Trans Oscar Pine, but he is and you should know, his voice cracks and he hates puberty, its not really mentioned that hes trans, lying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-13 21:42:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16480286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LacePendragon/pseuds/LacePendragon
Summary: Ozpin is still lying, even beyond the grave, even as the world crumbles around them, Ozpin is still lying. Or: Ozpin didn’t tell the truth when they told RNJR about their backstory.





	Lie

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written November 19th, 2017. Reposted October 31st, 2018. Happy Halloween.

“Why did you lie?” Oscar’s words lingered in the still air, soft in volume but heavy in meaning. He sat, cross-legged, his hands resting on his knees, his back straight. The cane, collapsed, laid to his left on the wooden floor. His gaze was narrowed, focused on the open doors that led onto the balcony of the training room. Outside, the moon was mostly full, only a few of its fragments visible tonight, and many stars shown above the tree line that stretched as far as Oscar could see.

_“What do you mean?”_ came Ozpin’s reply, their voice a nudge against Oscar’s ears. Oscar tilted his head, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. One in, one out, then again. He focused on drawing his aura to the surface, letting the avocado green crackle against his skin, mixing with the emerald and silver swirls that made up the second aura he now held.

Another breath, then another, then another. A flicker in his perception. Then, he opened his eyes.

Ethereal and not quite whole, Ozpin sat across from Oscar. Their posture mimicked his – crossed legs, resting hands, straight back. Oscar had seen pictures of Ozpin, once he’d gotten to Mistral. The being across from him, partially transparent and lit by the moon and stars from outside, looked different. Thinner in the shoulders, missing their glasses, and with hair that fell past their shoulders in a silver wave.

“You lied,” said Oscar. His mind flickered, a thousand images pressing against the dam he’d used to staunch the flow. They threatened to spill out at any moment, crying out for his attention. A battle, a scream, the taste of death and ash on his tongue. Something else. Something more. Something he didn’t understand.

He wasn’t old enough, inhuman enough.

Not yet, anyway.

“You’re not…” Oscar shook his head, closing his eyes. He lifted one hand and pressed it to his head, an ache already pressing behind his eyes and above his ears. This trick – aura bleeding to show Ozpin in a physical form – took a lot out of him. More than the change. But it was worth it, to see their expressions, to not allow them to hide behind a mental link they controlled better than he did.

“You’re not human,” said Oscar. The words lingered again.

Ozpin sighed. The sound echoed, both in the room and inside Oscar’s head. Like there were two Ozpin’s, one speaking a half second after the other. But there was only one. At least, only one named Ozpin.

The other…

_“No,”_ agreed Ozpin, shaking their head. Their long hair fell in their face, obscuring brown eyes that turned rusty with guilt. _“I’m not.”_

“You lied to them,” said Oscar. He straightened up once more, clenching his hands into fists and allowing them to rest, knuckles down, on his knees. “We’re supposed to be saving the world. How are we supposed to do that if you’re still _lying to them_?” His voice cracked, going high with his frustration. Ozpin watched him, something soft in their eyes.

They pressed their lips together, gaze shifting rustier. The brown bled out as something else, something _inhuman_ , bled in.

_“It’s not that simple, Oscar,”_ they said.

Oscar scowled. “Why not?” His own bangs fell in his face. He blew them out of the way as Ozpin brushed their own hair away from their face. Different gestures, similar purposes. A distorted mirror image. Just like so much of them already was.

His brain hurt, with all these conflicting thoughts bouncing around. He felt so much older than he was, but also younger, but also, not an age at all. It would be easier, he thought, if Ozpin _was_ actually human. If Ozpin _had_ been telling the truth.

But they weren’t. And they hadn’t.

_“Because they won’t understand,”_ said Ozpin. What’s there to understand, Oscar wanted to ask, but he didn’t. He didn’t because he knew, really, what the answer was, and Ozpin knew as well. _“Oscar.”_ Ozpin’s words, softer than before, a brush rather than a nudge. Oscar sighed. _“How did you take it, when I told you?”_

“I was… scared,” said Oscar, slowly. “Terrified.” He paused. “Relieved.”

_“Relieved?”_ echoed Ozpin. Did they really not know? Well, he guessed that they didn’t share everything, emotions included. Maybe he could close things down too, even if he didn’t try.

“Yeah,” said Oscar. He drew his knees up to his chest and hugged them, resting his chin on them. He sighed, blowing at his bangs again, and stared at the floor between his and Ozpin’s forms. “I mean…” He paused again, frowning. “I thought I was going to _die_ , before. I thought you’d absorb me and I’d just become another casualty of this war. But, if you’re not human, and we can separate again, then, that means I’ll be fine, right?” He glanced up at Ozpin, almost afraid to do so, and caught the sadness in their eyes.

_“Yes, you will be,”_ said Ozpin, their voice barely there, only audible because of the half-second echo in Oscar’s mind. _“Once we are separated, everything will go back to normal for you, if you want it to.”_

Oscar’s mind flickered across images of a world he never wanted to know. A world with a blood red sky and a woman with blood red eyes. A world with men with golden eyes and bloody fingers, with smiling teeth that meant madness and malice rather than joy. A world where the Grimm moved with purpose as they pulled themselves from infinitely deep pits of tar that would swallow a person whole. And had, many times before.

He flinched, ghost images of the tar clinging to him. “No,” he whispered, staring at the floor again. “Things will never go back to normal. I’m going to learn to fight and I’m going to help.”

_“You are but a child,”_ said Ozpin, the frown pressing against the edges of Oscar’s consciousness. _“This is not your war.”_

“And this isn’t your side!” snapped Oscar, his head darting up to look Ozpin in their ghostly eyes. He regretted it immediately, seeing Ozpin flinch. The anger fell out of him. He grimaced. “That wasn’t… I didn’t mean…” He shook his head. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I’m sorry.”

Silence, even their mental link gone dead, and Oscar wouldn’t have noticed it at all if not for the flickers of pain and sorrow that burrowed their way under his skin. Flickers that were too old and too inhuman to be his own.

Ozpin’s eyes were red. Translucent, their skin was ghostly pale. Their shadows too soft, too stark, all at once. Too inhuman. Too human. A combination that was uncanny and terrifying in its strangeness. Maybe Ozpin was better with short hair. At least that was more familiar.

_“You’re right,”_ said Ozpin. They let out something that might have been a sob or might have been a chuckle. It was hard to tell. Their link gave him no leverage, there. Ozpin’s feelings were as muddled as Oscar’s. _“I was born in her world, after all. Born by the Gods to be her opposite. To fight her, but to never side with the humans, not like this.”_ Oscar watched Ozpin’s motions. Watched them lift their hand to stare at it, as if it held all the secrets of the universe.

_“We were meant to keep balance, but when Salem struck out, I had to as well.”_ Ozpin closed their hand into a fist, bowing their head and closing their eyes. _“If I had not, then all would be lost. Then the human race would meet the same fate as my creators._ ”

“The brothers,” said Oscar. Even now, he couldn’t believe the intrusive memories that burned into every fibre of his very _soul._ “They’re…”

_“Dead,”_ finished Ozpin. _“Yes.”_ They nodded. Ozpin lifted one hand, the images that wandered behind Oscar’s eyes appearing between the two. Salem, fighting; the brothers, struggling; the Grimm, rising, swarming, _choking._ Oscar flinched. The images fell away. _“It was her first move, long before the rest. Killing our creators to gain their power.”_

“But you got the Light Brother’s,” said Oscar. Not a question, because nothing really was with them, not anymore. Not since the first time they’d spoken about what Ozpin really was, and not just the story they’d put together for the people who slept on in the house without knowledge of Oscar and Ozpin’s narrative.

_“I did. He created me, and so I became his child, his inheritance. His legacy.”_ Ozpin frowned. _“Destined to fight Salem until one of us finally won, once and for all. Neither one of us dying until the other fell for the final time.”_ Ozpin stared at Oscar, the infiniteness of their life staring out from their red, red eyes. _“I am sorry to bring you into this, my friend.”_

Oscar shrugged. “I always wanted to be something more than a farm hand.” The words sounded hollow, even to him. “I guess this is how I got it.” He gave a nervous laugh, but there was no humour in it. No pleasure. God, he was scared. Terror clung to him like a blanket, these days, whispering in his ears and making him fear that today would be his last, or that Ozpin’s story would unravel around them, leaving Oscar in the cold once the others decided that this lie was one too many.

“I still think we should tell them,” said Oscar. “They believed everything else. Why wouldn’t they believe this?”

_“Because I haven’t a clue how I ended up with you,”_ said Ozpin, as if that explained everything. But when Oscar stared at them, confusion burning through their link until Ozpin actually flinched from it, they continued. _“I have escaped from death so many times before. Such is the nature of being one such as myself. Once, I was a wizard, once, a knight, once, a prince.”_ Ozpin frowned. _“Bending people and stories to ensure my ability to blend into the world.”_

Oscar watched, unsure how to respond, or even what to think.

_“But I have never died, only awoken elsewhere, the same as always, moments after what should have been my death,”_ said Ozpin. _“I believe – I_ know _– Salem has discovered a way to severe this fundamental aspect of my magic. She gave such power to young Cinder, who destroyed it, presumably forever.”_

Oscar frowned. “How could she sneak that past you? Why didn’t you notice? Why didn’t you _do_ anything?” His voice cracked again, and he grimaced. Stupid puberty. Stupid fear. Stupid being fourteen. He hated it. Almost as much as he hated not knowing what to do.

_“I…”_ Ozpin sounded ashamed, a strange flush breaking its way across their translucent, pale skin. _“I was too docile, too enamoured, to notice. Just as I was when she struck out against our creators.”_ Ozpin closed their eyes and bowed their head. _“Once more, my idiocy cost so much.”_

Silence again. Neither one sure what to say. Maybe Ozpin was done talking. Maybe Ozpin was waiting for a response. But how was Oscar supposed to respond to that? How was he supposed to _understand_ any of that? He didn’t know. He just… he didn’t know.

“You’re like, soul mates, or something,” he mumbled, for lack of anything else to say.

He felt rather than saw the wry, sad twist, a mockery of a smile, that rose to Ozpin’s lips. _“Yes, and more. Two halves of a whole. Destined to love, to hate, and to fight, until we both fall, for neither can die while the other lives on.”_

“Which is probably how you’re still around,” said Oscar, rubbing at his head. Pain thrummed under his skin, a living thing. He couldn’t keep this up much longer. He needed to drop his aura and sleep. Presuming he could sleep, anyway. He hadn’t been, lately. No matter how much he tried.

It was like the whole weight of the world settled on his head when he tried.

And hey, it sort of did.

_“Her goal could not have been to kill me, only to make my defeat that much easier,”_ said Ozpin. _“Though I doubted she thought I’d end up in the body of a farm boy.”_ A wry twist to their words to go with the smile, but Oscar couldn’t bring it in him to acknowledge it. He was _tired._ Tired of lying, tired of hiding, tired of running. Tired of fighting, and he hadn’t even started that yet.

_“You should sleep,”_ said Ozpin. A shift, and Ozpin was sitting next to him, on his left, facing Oscar. Their hand rested on Oscar’s shoulder. _“We still have much to do.”_

“For the forest is dark and cold and deep,” murmured Oscar.

_“And we’ve miles to go before we sleep,”_ finished Ozpin. With a squeeze to Oscar’s shoulder, Ozpin vanished, as if they’d never been there at all.

Oscar pushed himself to his feet and shuffled out of the training room, taking his bag and the collapsed cane with him. His vision wobbled and he clung to the railing on the walk to his room.

Ozpin was right. He needed sleep. He needed food. He needed to _breathe._ It wouldn’t do any good if he was worn out.

After all, there was a world to save, and, for the moment at least, he was the carrier of humanity’s best shot at survival.

The world was cold, Salem was cruel, and there was much to be done before he could rest. Before any of them could rest.

But hey, no pressure.


End file.
